//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 
// Story: The Chaos Comes 
// by fatewing1 
//------------------------------//

Twilight Sparkle rose from her four poster bed, and stretched. She had no idea what had woken her, only that it was supremely important. She gathered her thoughts and her crown, a brief inspection proving that it was the real deal. After that issue with Sunset Shimmer, she always checked. She trotted over to her door and left, Spike right behind her. She walked through the halls of Canterlot Castle, each as familiar to her as the library in Ponyville. She had come to Canterlot to discuss some frightening dreams with her mentor, hoping that Celestia could shed some light on what they were. Spike hitched a ride on his big sister/mother figure, concerned.
"What's the matter Twi?" the little purple drake asked. "Bad dreams again?"
"I hope they're only that, Spike," Twilight replied. She turned a corner and passed by a the Star Swirl wing of the royal library. "Otherwise, we're all in real danger."
"What from?" her faithful assistant asked.
"From war," she returned. It might of been his imagination, but Spike could of sworn that the temperature had dropped five degrees from that simple statement. He shivered.
After about twenty minutes, the two made it to the royal audience chamber. Shining Armor was standing guard, watchful as was to be expected of the head of the guard. With him was a pegasus with a creamy brown coat and a blue mane and tail. Twilight had to grasp for his name at first. Quick Guard? No, now she remembered, his name was Flash Sentry. The young guard nodded a polite salute to Twilight, while her brother beamed at her.
"Hey, little sis, I was about to head out to get you when my relief showed up," Shining said. "The princess wants to talk to you about something. No idea what though."
"Thanks Shining," she said. "Take care, ok?"
"Will do, sis," her brother responded. His horn glowed, a light blue, and the doors opened. Twilight stepped through and shut the door behind her. When she turned around, her mind drew a blank, something so rare that Spike immediately wrote it down to put in his calendar. Then he looked up and also drew a similar blank. The scene before them buggered imagination. The audience chamber was mostly empty, a rare occurrence, what with so many ponies seeking something from the Crown. Instead of the standard crowd there were four beings in the chamber, counting Twilight and Spike. The first was, of course, Princess Celestia. She looked as she always did, white coat immaculately clean and mane the pastel shades of dawn drifting in an unseen breeze. The other entity was what had flabbergasted Twilight. He was an alicorn stallion, somehow appearing older and more regal than Celestia. His coat was a warm black, similar to the comforting dark of sleep. His mane and tail floated in the same breeze as Celestia's, gold and black flowing through each other like ink in water. His horn and wings shared their color scheme with his mane. When Twilight's brain had rebooted, and accepted the fact of an alicorn older than her mentor, she noted the strangest thing about him. He wore a sword, something that she had read about in the human world but had thought would be unknown in Equestria due in part to a lack of hands need to wield it.
The two elder beings went quiet when Twilight approached, their conversation put on hold. Celestia rose from her throne, the stallion coming up on her right flank.
"Hello, my faithful student," the alicorn of the sun smiled. "You're a little earlier than I had expected."
"I'm sorry, Princess," Twilight bowed low. "Something woke me from my sleep, and I decided to come here as soon as I could. Though my brother mentioned that you wanted to talk with me?"
"Indeed my dear," Celestia acknowledged. "As you can see, we have a truly special guest. With what you had said abou those nightmares, and with what news he brings me, we will need all of your friends as well as my sister and Discord."
"If you don't mind my asking, Princess," Twilight began. "But who is he, and how do we know we can trust him?"
At that, the stallion let out a deep belly laugh. It was as deep and warm as his coat, somehow reminding Twilight of a cup of hot chocolate. When he was done he straightened.
"You were right, Celestia," he chuckled, summoning a bag of bits and levitating them to the princess. "I do like this one. She has a bit of spunk, and just enough curiosity and caution to make her a wonderful researcher. Shame that history must repeat itself through her." He turned to actually regard Twilight. "As for your question, young one, my name is Fatewing, Keeper of the Discarded, Knower of Secrets, Rememberer of the Forgotten, Custodian of Forbidden Lore, and Protector of the Lost. I have come to Equestria, land of Harmony, at the request of the most unusual source."
"Who?" the genius mare asked, not seeing the smirk on Fatewing's face.
"Simply put, my dear," he summoned up what appeared to be a heavily burnt piece of hide, not dissimilar to a pony's. "You." He tossed the piece of flesh to the ground. Clearly visible through the soot was a cutie mark. A large six pointed star, surrounded by smaller stars. Twilight studied it, her conscious mind refusing to accept what her reason was telling her. One moment she was studying the remains of herself, and the next, Fatewing was encased in her telekinetic aura. Twilight's magic, already truly impressive before her ascension to alicornhood, was shining through her eyes and from her cutie mark. Celestia looked on in a mix of horror and surprise. She had heard of and of course seen the unicorn phenomenon known as Breahthough, where their magic is suddenly amplified so much that it physically manifests on the unicorn. However, she had never seen an alicorn do it. If what a unicorn could do under its influence was anything to go off of, then Twilight was about to destroy Fatewing along with a decent chunk of the countryside behind him. As she took a breathe to berate Twilight, she heard Fatewing laugh. She looked at him and dropped her jaw. Twilight's purple magic aura was being pushed off of Fatewing by a silver aura that matched the glow from his horn. Twilight was suddenly surrounded by an aura of the same color, seeming only to cut off the flow of magic around her. Twilight suddenly sagged in the air and was gently lowered back to the ground. She looked up, a sheepish expression evident.
"Don't apologize, Miss Sparkle," Fatewing laughed. "Instead, hold your head high. There hasn't been a mage strong enough to hold me like that in a VERY long time."
Twilight looked over to her mentor, still looking sheepish. Celestia just smiled, the issue already dealt with. Twilight then turned back to Fatewing.
"Could you explain what this is?" the purple alicorn levitated the scrap back up.
"That," he replied. "Is all that remains of a version of you,from a timeline that may still come to pass."
Twilight looked confused. "But that's not possible," she questioned. "The only time travel spell I even know about only allows for travel of about a week into the past. This is the mark of someone much older then I am now. A decade at least."
"Indeed," he replied. "From the bits and pieces that I could resummon from this scraps memories, she was about a decade older than you are now. She had modified the spell you know of, giving it more juice. And the dreams you've been having are the residual memories, resonating with the intact flesh of a decade before. Your dreams are exactly what you feared them to be" he paused for a breathe, the action somehow seeming to age him. "They are the promise of war."
The two mares looked at Fatewing, faces flush with fear. Celestia's mind was racing. There were no enemies of her past left to start a war, nor were there any today that would be that foalish. Her mind also faced another problem. How would she protect her subjects from the worst of the war, if what Fatewing had shared came to pass? Twilight's mind raced for similar reasons. Only, unlike Celestia, she had lived some of the war in her dreams. The emotion that colored Celestia's thinking was controlled panic. The one that colored Twilight Sparkle's was outright terror.
"What do we do?" Twilight asked quietly, so much so that Spike could barely hear her from on her back.
"Simple, Twi," the young dragon said, warmth and confidence in his voice. "You and the rest of the girls just need to use the Elements of Harmony on the big bad guy and he'll be sent to the moon, or encased in stone, or something." He looked at the two elder alicorns. "Right?"
Fatewing turned a sad smile to the drake. "I only wish kid. The one who will lead the coming army is an enemy older than the standard Elements of Harmony. Even when I was as young as Twilight, the Alicorns of Harmony weren't strong enough to defeat this monster." He laughed, not with humor but with old pain. "In fact all that happened was his army getting stronger! No, Spike, the Elements of Harmony alone are not enough for this foe." 
Twilight looked up, catching the phrasing for what it was. A ray of hope. "But combined with something else they might be?"
"Indeed," Fatewing said. He started walking out. "Get you friends upto the Star Swirl the Bearded wing of the library here. I'll explain thi-" He was cut off when a guard burst in.
"PRINCESS!" the stallion yelled. "A report just came in from Ponyville. There seems to be some kind of malicious thunderstorm attacking the town."
The alicorns stood rigid. "Twilight, I'm sending you to Ponyville now. Get to your friends and get that town evacuated," Fatewing ordered, his horn starting to glow.
"How am I suppose to get there in time? My teleportation only goes about three miles and it exhaust-" she started, talking right up until a flash of silver light surrounded her, and then was gone.
"-me when I use...it..." Twilight finished. She looked around. Fatewing had teleported her the 70 miles from Cantorlot to Ponyville. And her arrival showed her what the guard's report could not begin to convey. The storm above truly did seem malevolent, winds seeming to aim for weaker buildings, lightning striking somehow dry piles of tinder. And underneath some of the rubble she could clearly see dead ponies. She ran for the center of town, scanning her surroundings as she went, dodging lightning most of the way and crying all the way. What she saw at the center of town both filled her with fear and hope. The unicorns in the town had enacted a barrier around the rest of the citizens, protecting them and the town center from the worst of the storm. There were wounded in the barrier, being treated by earth ponies. But what truly surprised her and scared her were the pegasi. Not a one was in the sky, and those that even looked up did so with eyes full of true fear.
Twilight rushed the barrier and slipped in, the magic parting around here like a veil, dropping back into place behind her. She looked around for her friends, located them, and continued towards them.
"What's going on?" Twilight asked. "What's scaring the pegasi so much?"
Her friends looked at her. Rarity and Applejack wore worried expressions, obviously wondering the same things. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, as Twilight was expecting, seemed to be truly terrified. With Fluttershy, such a thing was almost normal, granted never to this degree before. Bu Rainbow Dash seemed even more afraid then anyone else, which truly terrified the rest of them. She was supposed to be fearless. What could scare her enough for this reaction? But it was Pinkie Pie that seemed the strangest. She had a similar expression of fear as her pegasus friends, as if she knew what was in those clouds, and not even she could giggle away the fear.
Finally Rainbow Dash looked at Twilight. "The lords of the sky have come," the blue mare said. "And they have brought their wrath in full." She then curled up on the ground in true terror. Pinkie Pie finally seemed to bust out of her funk a little, her normally puffy hair straight and darker.
"She means," she began, her voice as flat and dark with fear as her mane. "Is that this storm is the work of thunderbirds." Rainbow Dash covered her head with a small shriek of fear, and Fluttershy started to hyperventilate.
Twilight seemed confused. "What are thunderbirds?" she asked. Rarity and Applejack looked at Pinkie Pie, the same question on their faces.
"Thunderbirds are beasts of truly humbling power. There aren't that many of them, thank the Crowns, but they are a great enough threat that their territory is forbidden grounds." The pink mare stared at the clouds above. "I had an encounter with one once. I was still on my family's rock farm at the time. I was way out in the east field, not realizing that the thunderstorm at the time was a young thunderbird hunting. It landed in the field in front of me, larger than the town hall building, and shrieked. Before it could attack, though, Princess Celestia showed up. She glared at the great bird, her wings outstretched, and hiding me from its sight. She glared at it, the sun blasting through the clouds to shine on her. I ran away, and found a safe place to hide and watch. The thunderbird attacked the princess, obviously too young to of heard of her or too arrogant to care. The storm seemed to collect to its back and a full blown wall of lightning hurled at Celestia. She blocked, seemingly only just, and responded with a blast of pure power. Her attack barely ruffled it feathers. The whole fight between the two continued for maybe an hour. Finally the thunderbird left, seeking easier prey. As it left, the storm weakened and, eventually, dissipated. Princess Celestia stood firm until the last storm cloud had vanished. Then she had sagged down, obviously exhausted, and looked around. She didn't see me, I guess, and cried a little. The sun dimmed a bit as she flew off." Pinkie Pie looked back down at Twilight, her mane and tail starting to get puffier, her voice reflecting the shift. "I bet she was really happy to learn that I had survived."
Twilight was once again flabbergasted. Creatures that could fight Princess Celestia to a draw? And the that was a young one? And the storm above was the work of an adult? How could she even begin to deal with this?
"Sugarcube?" Applejack asked. "What's the plan?"
Twilight shook herself out of her funk. "Alight girls," She looked to all her friends, trying to will each of them her confidence, false at it was. It actually seemed to work too, as Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash actually looked at her, the fear draining away. "We need to get the rest of the townsponies out of here."